There are about 15,000 transgender people serving in the military, but no one knows how many will be left a few months from now.
On Friday, the Trump administration’s ban barring many transgender people from serving in the military went into effect. President Trump announced the ban in 2017, but it only now goes into place after a series of legal challenges and delays in implementation. Some conservatives are celebrating this development, but they really shouldn’t be — Trump’s transgender ban is unnecessary, antagonistic, and a blot on the president’s otherwise decent record on LGBT rights.
When Trump originally announced the ban, he cited the supposed “tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender [people] in the military would entail.” In light of the president’s assessment, the Department of Defense has revoked the Obama-era policy that allowed transgender people to serve openly. The new policy isn’t a blanket ban, as it allows many currently enlisted trans service people to remain, but going forward no person with gender dysphoria who has received either hormone treatment or sex reassignment surgery may enlist. Effectively, this will bar most transgender people from serving unless they forgo medically recommended treatment and serve in silence among members of their biological sex.
In the abstract, this might sound reasonable to many conservatives, but it’s worth remembering that Trump’s ban will betray transgender Americans who enlisted to potentially risk their lives defending America. Charlotte Clymer, a transgender veteran, wrote about the experience of carrying caskets of fallen soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery:
There’s no actual reason to cast aside transgender Americans willing to make such a sacrifice. Costs aren’t really a concern: A study from the RAND Corporation found that health costs for active transgender service people would only represent a “0.04- to 0.13-percent increase in active-component health care expenditures.” That same study also found the inclusion of transgender troops likely has “little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness.”
So it’s a shame to see President Trump go through with such a shameful and needlessly antagonistic move, especially because he’s largely been a pro-LGBT politician, and is by far the most open-minded Republican to ever serve as president. In 2016, Trump entered the White House “fine with same-sex marriage,” unlike every one of his predecessors, including President Barack Obama, who opposed gay marriage for nearly his first four years as president. Plus, Trump waved the rainbow LGBT flag on the campaign trail, and his administration recently launched a diplomatic initiative to fight the cruel criminalization of homosexuality in 71 countries worldwide.
That’s not the resume of an anti-LGBT bigot by any stretch of the imagination.
Still, Trump gives his progressive critics some solid ammunition with the transgender troop ban when they’d otherwise be left grasping for straws (or wedding cake) in their often baseless efforts to paint Trump and all Republicans as anti-gay. That alone makes this move worth reconsidering. Add in the real harm this ban will do to transgender people, and it’s clear the president has made a mistake.
Brad Polumbo (@brad_polumbo) is an editor for Young Voices and a student at UMass Amherst.
